See what people are saying about Language Making Nature

It turns out that David Lukas who is so good at reading the natural world is also quite wonderful about walking us into and through the language in which we speak of it.

— Robert Hass, Poet Laureate of the United States, 1995-1997; Pulitzer Prize, 2008

What a bodacious, crazy-mad idea for a book! After all, why should we leave the creation of fresh words only to corporate executives, focusgroups, and ad campaigns? If you ache for the breathing eairth, and for the countless hooved, winged, and rooted shapes of sentience now tumbling into extinction, then—whether you’ve been stung by a beogang or yearn for the aefendream of a bryd—this little volume is for you. For it carries the seeds of cultural metamorphosis, and dares you to start planting!

— David Abram, author of Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology

I am admiring the intricate energies of your book: so inventive, and wholly original, and clearly born of years of close acquaintance with the archive, as it were, but above all with the living world. I’m glad to have this territory in common with you!

— Robert Macfarlane, author of Landmarks

Thank you so much for “Language Making Nature”. “I have been making my way into it, like a field trip –just as you suggested. And what a delightful walk. I don’t usually write in books, but I’ve just been scribbling notes as I go, because it’s so stimulating of ideas.

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

David Lukas is a western North American naturalist bird specialist, who has turned his ingenious mind to the English language andits always-evolving possibilities. He’s bolder with language than he’d be with wild birds . . . and as a non-linguist, non-philologist, comes up with transgressive ideas and shocking propositions that are probably good for us! (I would still hold that language is a wild commons)—but I’m wholesomely shaken by David’s nervy and demanding line of thought. Highly recommended.

Language Making Nature - NEW words carry NEW ideas. Great book by David Lukas.

— Peter Diamandis, Founder of X Prize Foundation and Singularity University, New York Times bestselling author of Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think.

Wow! What an inspired piece of work. There’s so MUCH to sink one’s mind into here. David Lukas has given us an astonishing way to make language from our experiences in this world and “Language Making Nature” is a revolutionary act of being alive—connecting us to ourselves and to the world we live in. Thank you for this important book.

— Lisa Couturier, author of The Hope of Snakes: And Other Tales from the Urban Landscape

Lukas...draws on his teaching and writing experience—and some fascinating research—to provide a tool-kit for inventing and modifying words, finding in the process new ways to express our connection to each other, other species, the community of nature, and this earth. The book is mind boggling, a little overwhelming in the amount and order of information, and ultimately, very liberating.

— Susan J. Tweit, author of Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey

"Just made it down to the mailbox last night and found the book. Immediately engaging on any page. Thank you." -- Isabella J.

"This is a book of linguistic exploration and invitation, entered into by a person whose love of the living world's taxonomies, connections, and distinctions has carried him from one field into the other. It is an amateur's work, in the best sense of that word. The sense of transport here is clear, and readers will catch it." --B. J. M.

"Just got my copy of "Language Making Nature". Thank you. You know when you read something, and it just kind of slides into your brain like, I don't know, a warm knife through butter? Well, just reading your first few paragraphs was like that for me. Or maybe it's more like a thirsty patch of ground when it gets rain. In any case, your message and your medium feel like a mental handshake across space and time. So looking forward to getting more deeply into this." --Julia R.